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War & Peace :
Emergency supplemental spending bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (H.R. 1591)/Motion to pick conferees and instruct them to include language requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops form Iraq by August 2008 (2007 house Roll Call 235)

Emergency supplemental spending bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (H.R. 1591)/Motion to pick conferees and instruct them to include language requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops form Iraq by August 2008

This vote was on a motion to select lawmakers from the House to be appointed to a House-Senate conference committee to iron out the differences between the two chambers' respective versions of a supplemental war-spending bill. The appointment of the conferees also carried instructions to insist on House-passed language to require a pullout of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of August 2008.

This vote represented a Republican attempt to force an up-or-down vote in the House on the withdrawal timetable and force many previously uncommitted Democrats to take what Republicans thought was a politically risky stand on the war

In order for a bill to become law, it must pass both the House and the Senate in identical forms before being signed by the president. If the two chambers pass differing versions of legislation, what's known as a conference committee is convened to hammer out the differences between the two bills and draft consensus legislation, which then must in turn be approved by both the House and Senate.

In their individual versions of legislation funding the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both chambers included language that would require the pullout of combat troops from Iraq, but the House and Senate differed on the timetable for withdrawal and whether the timeframe would be binding. The House-passed spending bill would require combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of August 2008. The Senate set a non-binding goal of the end of March 2008. The House's version was also more restrictive in how it would allow the secretary of Defense to use the military in that country after the redeployment of troops.

Both House and Senate bills totaled more than $123 billion for the continuing war effort.

President Bush vowed to veto the measure if it contained any war restrictions. Most House Republicans also opposed a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, calling it a defeatist strategy. Democrats said it was past time for a change of course in the war.

Only one Republican, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (Md.), joined all but nine Democrats in voting for the motion. (Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio voted "present.") Thus, on a vote of 215 to 199, the House voted to instruct conferees to a House-Senate committee ironing out differences in a $123 billion war supplemental spending bill to insist on language requiring a pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq by August 2008.